January 31, 2009

The past few days I have had the opportunity to represent the Polson Church and the Yellowstone Conference of the United Methodist Church at a national, quadrennial training event in Jacksonville Florida. There are 22 of us from Montana and Wyoming gathered here to equip ourselves, our churches, and the conference for mission and ministry in the coming years. We have gathered around two simple, things… our mission, 'to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world' and our four focus areas… Leadership Development ~ Creating new places for people to express themselves spiritually ~ Mission to the poor ~ Global health. For each of the focus areas there is one plenary session and a collection of workshops geared toward each area. In addition, we have had opportunities to meet together as a conference leadership team and with Bishop Stanovsky in a joint session with the Rocky Mountain Conference. In particular, I have taken part in a technology breakout session, a workshop on ecumenism, a workshop on reaching the disillusioned, and a workshop on a spiritual approach to the elimination of poverty (imagine that). It has been nice to hook up with friends from across the country as well as make some new ones. On Thursday night, a few of us made a new friend in the form a cab driver (catching a cab ride in a new town is always an engaging practice) who told us a bit about his story as an immigrant from Haiti. As a former mayor of a town in Haiti, and with a shade of hope in his voice, Edrique told us about his dreams of returning to his country. On a sad note, he also shared a bit about the destruction that has plagued his country at the hands of a few of our previous governmental leaders.A few memorable quotes from the plenaries and workshops… ○ Salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted… MLK jr. ○ ...kneel before the poor and see in their face the face of Christ with hope that they might see the face of Christ in ours… ○ What economic habits can our church let go of in order to help the poor… ○ We need to live more simply so that others can simply live… ○ As is your power, so is your responsibility…

Our objective over these few days has been to re-imagine the ways in which we might rethink the church and turn things upside-down…

A worthy quote… Acts 17:6-7 'When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, "These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has entertained them as guests.'

May we too be dragged into the streets because of our attempts to turn the world upside down...